Take Me Dancing Tonight

Prelude:

Frank had a secret for no real reason. It wasn’t even his to keep, but he kept it all the same. Not to be special, not to be different, not even because he was unable to speak it, just because.   

Frank was a slight man, not tall, not short, but thin. Though young, he hunched forward, shoulder blades harsh, even under his long, heavy, wool coat.  His hair was black, shapeless and orbited about his head like a hallo of darkness. His eyes could have been green, they could have been brown, deep-set as they were, they never caught the light. His nose stretched forward and down into a point, his cheekbones were sharp enough to cut hollows in his long face. There was a discernible birdlike quality to his overall appearance. He was not a person for whom the sun-shone, there was a sense of tragedy about him and he knew it. Much like a bird, mucky from a life lived unnaturally in cities, you wouldn’t notice he was there until you did. And when you did, you might find your body awash with the chill of some nameless omen. Like a mysterious spec which haunts the periphery of your vision (which when caught for that fraction of a moment appears as if to fall and fall forever) the more you tried to focus your gaze on him, the less Frank was there. 

Frank had recently taken up smoking, for no other reason than he was in Paris and wanted to look the part. He was twenty and ignorant of most things.

His friends were all more fashionable, affluent and beautiful than him.  Photographers, models, and random rich Parisian kids who’s wealth afforded them even greater beauty than that which fate had already bestowed. Though being with them would on many sober occasion make Frank feel ugly or like an imposter, at other, more affected times, their company was like being high on good cocaine.  So as many times a week as he could, he would slump in corners and stand in darkened rooms across Paris watching perfect people trip-over VIP stalls, vomit on their expensive shoes, scream at bar staff and give their sex away for cheap. 

On this night they were at another hush-hush, fashionable, euro-trash dive. Frank had been so drunk as they landed that he now remembered only snatches of their arrival. A taxi door slammed. Somewhere he saw a man slap a girl across the face. A dropped cigarette rolled into the gutter to a chorus of dismay. Did that photographer guy hurtle jump over the homeless man passed out on the street? Or had Frank only imagined it? There had been a bouncer in the elevator who had looked the group up and down before taking particular issue with Frank, which he indicated with a sort of disapproving snarl.  He remembered this because Colette, had responded by drunkenly throwing an arm around him and slurring;

 “C'est mon petit ami“

And for a few moments Frank had decided that he was absolutely in love with the tiny blond haired model.  He found pity a turn-on.  And she had kept her arm around him the entire elevator ride. She had pushed her little weightless body against his and he had felt his mouth fill with spit as he envisioned flashes of her Disney-princess eyes looking up at him, lips around his cock. Now in this space, Colette was nowhere to be seen and Frank was wincing away the aftertaste of a shot Michael had bought for him. Michael was the first person Frank met when he arrived in Paris, he had been a friend of a friend who had offered him a couch for a few days and Frank had imposed himself on him ever since. 

Michael didn’t mind and Frank knew why.  

Presently Michael was showing off photos of the 15 year old Dutch Model he’d been dating for over a year to a heavily tattooed woman who’s neck he’d just spent the last 20 minutes or so sucking.  She looked bored.

Frank swiveled, to lean his back against the bar top and surveyed the scene around him. In a room with music this loud, the world becomes a silent movie. People communicate in pantomime and react in hyperbole. Lasers, smoke, flashing colorful lights, a rhythmic hum, and whispers of human beings all in a weird techno soup. It was less reality than what it might look like if a Television could dream. He remembered this thought later as he stared down at vomit in the toilet, which he assumed by the taste of socks and arsenic in his mouth, he had likely put there.  He wanted to sleep. How long had he been in here? What if everyone’s left? Where the fuck was he? How would he get home? Where was he spending the night? Fear and sadness passed over him with a cool familiarity.  He’s life was meaningless, he was alone in a strange city with people who didn’t care if he lived or died. He felt a tear gathering and decided not to stop it. It rolled down his cheek.  His noes became a rich fount, he batted drunkenly at the toilet roll dispenser, balled up a handful of paper and emptied his face. 

“prenez-vous une merde ?’’

Came a familiar voice. Michael was outside the door. Frank flushed, wiped his face and opened the door.

“Frank!?’’

It became immediately clear that Michael had not known Frank was the person in the stall. Michael looked completely fucked. As Michael was an incredibly beautiful man, Frank assumed he himself could only look much, much worse. Michael moved in thoughtful slow-motion as he pressed his palm into Frank’s chest, pushing him backwards, back into the stall, and with some difficulty closed the door behind them both.

‘’voulez-vous une ligne ?’’

Michael reached for a little glass vile he wore on a chain around his neck. The top of the vile unscrewed and attached to the inside of the lid was a spoon not much bigger than a matchstick for sniffing the cocaine off.

“il vous dégriser’’

Frank knew it would sober him up,  but his nose was too full of snot and sadness to snort anything.  Michael had a sniff, while Frank blew his nose and wiped his face once more.

“do you have a mint, or some gum?”

Michael, laughed. Screwed his vile closed and reached into his front pant’s pocket. He struggled to get his hand in, his jeans were skin-tight and the stall didn’t give them much space to play with. Michael stared at Frank and used his free hand to cup the side of his wet face.

“pleurais-tu?”

Michael ran his thumb across his face,  just under Frank’s eye where moment’s ago a tear had indeed been. Frank looked up into Michael’s eyes, they were beautiful. Looking back he couldn’t remember if they were blue or green. Just that they were stunning, and as full as they were empty.  Michael smiled;

“trouve’!”

He pulled something from his pocket and Frank remembered he had asked for a mint.  Michael looked thoughtfully into Frank’s unfocused eyes and used his finger to insert the small white disk deep into his mouth.

Frank felt Michael’s finger linger. His mouth filled with spit once more.

Michael very slowly pulled out his finger and said in a thick French accent;

“no more tears.”

Frank swallowed and realized he couldn’t taste mint.  

 Back on the dance floor, the Television’s nightmare suddenly started to become soothing. Frank couldn’t help but move his body, despite not really being able to feel it. He kissed a girl who’s likeness disappeared into the surrounding soup. He felt like his entire mind and body was a hard dick and even the tiniest bit of stimulation was enough to bring him close to the brink of bliss.

He didn’t want to leave when he was thrown in a taxi.  The sky was still dark but beginning to show the stains of a new day. He got to Michael’s and they collapsed onto his bed. They undid each other’s pants, pulled up their shirts and pushed their stomachs together while they jacked each other off. There wasn’t any conversation, no real kissing, just some grunting, before they came, and collapsed into sleep. It had happened before. First on the night they met. Frank didn’t really think about it. Michael slept soundly, but Frank soon found himself snapped awake once more, desperate with thirst.  He walked naked through the apartment. Michael’s place, much like Michael himself, was beautiful, rich, classically French and pretty much empty. A single antique armchair sat in the sitting room which opened up into a modern kitchen at the other end. Frank filled a glass with water and gulped it down, then filled it and did the same again. He immediately felt the lights starting to switch back on in his brain. In the corner of his eye a curtain curled to a gentle wind. Frank approached it and found the door to the balcony agar. He stepped out onto it and looked out at the incredible view of Paris that only a foreigner could truly appreciate.  Michael’s place was on the fifth story of a neoclassical apartment building, two streets back form the Seine. The apartment was on a corner and gave near 180 degree views of the city beyond. The sun was rising and painting the city with impressionist strokes of dusty blues and harsh candle flame yellows.  This isn’t really Paris, he thought to himself, this is the way people who dream of Paris imagine it to be- it’s rich private views like this that lead to visitors being perpetually disappointed with the reality of this place. Frank looked across the road to where he could see directly into the tiny kitchen of a far more modest home. As he looked, as though by the power of his gaze, a light came on. A woman, young, thin, with shoulder length, blonde, bed-messed hair floated into the kitchen wearing an old fashioned cream colored satin slip. Frank watched as she opened the French door from the kitchen and stepped out onto a balcony barely big enough, even for someone as tiny as her. She was smoking a cigarette which Frank had watched her skillfully light off the stove top. Accustomed to being invisible, Frank watched her, oblivious to his own nakedness and without fear of being caught. There was something about her, something which seemed to vibrate the space between them. She was plain, and frail, in a way much like himself, she was perhaps his age, maybe older, late-20s or so. He watched her smoke. She would take a drag, then open her mouth agape just long enough to let some of the smoke dance about her face, in the still morning air and then inhale deeply. After a while Frank became aware that he could hear ‘Wham!’ playing. There was a news seller setting up down on the street bellow who was listening to the radio unsuitability loud given the early hour.

  ‘… Wake me up, before you go, go…’

The music was ill fitting for the scene Frank was watching.  The upbeat pop melody filled his stomach with vinegar.  It was wrong. Off. And it made him feel sick.

The tiny woman on the tiny balcony tossed her cigarette away using only the tips of her fingers as though disposing of some small dead creature. She carefully watched it fall to spark the sidewalk and then looked up at Frank. There was no shock or fear in her expression, she seemed to look through him. He might have believed for a moment that he was indeed invisible, if it weren’t for her stare being too precise. It was directed at the exact position in space where Frank would have been, if he were indeed there. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, devoid of feeling but full of knowing, as though she had felt him there, naked and watching, all along.  She swung a leg out over the cast iron barrier which separated her from the sky. Turned her back on Frank and, spreading her arms open like a dead bird, let herself fall backwards, gravity pulling her headfirst out of the window.

“…take me dancing tonight…”