Before I started hanging around with Skippy, I wasn’t a fan of dancing. But not even reluctant dancers could resist him. All you had to do was look at Skippy, and you couldn’t help but move. The music just seemed to pulse up his body, past those skinny hips, up his straight spine and then through two fluid arms.
When he danced, Skippy closed his eyes, as if taking orders from some celestial plane. And when he was dancing, it was easier for everyone else to enjoy it, too. You could just watch him and imagine that you moved as well as he did. And somehow it became true. Because you were having fun, and that was the big secret to dancing, anyway.
Tonight Ross was wearing a T-shirt that read:Boys Will Do Boys. He moved around behind Skippy, curving one big arm around his chest. And somehow the two of them didn’t even look ridiculous. Because Skippy was just that good a dancer.
As one song morphed into the next, I heard a squeal in my ear, even louder than Lady Gaga. “Rikker!” I turned around to find Rachel and Daphne, friends of mine from high school.
I gave each of them a quick kiss on the cheek. “What’s up!” I shouted over the music. When Daphne jutted a thumb towards Graham, I said, “My friend from school.”
They both gave him appreciative looks.Good luck with that, girls. But the company of a couple of girls was just what Graham needed, apparently. When Daphne stepped in closer to him, he seemed to loosen up. He smiled, and began to move in a way that was less self-conscious. Daphne sidled up in front of him, and he put a hand on her waist.
Even though Graham was touching Daphne, his eyes worked the room. The place was heating up in every possible way. The guys around us on the dance floor were losing their shirts one at a time. While torsos writhed with the music, hands slid over skin and fabric. Denim to denim, hips pulsed and ground to the beat. We were a giant undulating mass of bodies, sweating through songs by Macklemore, and for the older crowd, Depeche Mode.
When the music slowed, Rachel put her arms around me so we could have a catch-up chat. “I saw the articles. What made you go public?” She was one of the friends I was out to in high school.
“No choice in the matter.”
She gave me a peck on the cheek. “Somehow I knew you’d say that. A few people at school mentioned it to me. Like Petey, for one.”
Petey was the co-captain of my high school team, now playing for UVM where Rachel went to school. “Yeah? What did he say?”
“He said he always had a hunch.”
I chewed on that for a second. “I guess that doesn’t make him a genius, right?” It was a pretty small school, and I hung out with Skippy all the time, even if we never touched anywhere near school. Then again, Skippy was popular with lots of straight people, too.
Rachel put her mouth next to my ear. “Maybe it’s something that people say, because it sounds better than ‘I’m totally clueless.’”
I kissed her cheek again. “Whichever.”
“You know, I don’t like seeing Skippy with another guy,” she said.
I took the high road, as usual. Although it was getting old. “I met Ross over the summer. He seems like a pretty good guy.”
Rachel smiled. “I’m sure you’re right, but I was trying to be loyal. Is your friend straight? Daphne is working it pretty hard.”
I took a peek over my shoulder, where the two of them were slow-dancing. “Not sure where he stands,” I said.And neither is he.
Eventually the music picked up again, and we all danced ourselves silly. It had been a while since I’d had a night out like this, and I’d forgotten what dancing was for. It was such a release. (Like sex, only not as messy, and with less heartbreak.) The music coursed through me, and I stopped thinking and let myself just feel.
When we needed a break, Graham bought a couple more beers. Standing side by side, we propped up a wall beside the dancers, alternately swallowing the beer and pressing the cool bottles to our faces.
When Graham tipped his chin up to drain the bottle, I had an involuntary flashback to the sight of those lips wrapped around a certain part of my anatomy.
Dayum. That image was burned on my brain, and chance of a repeat was slim. But at least I had the one memory.
We stashed our bottles on a ledge when the Communards version of “Don’t Leave Me This Way” started up. Like Gaga’s “Born this Way,” it had been adopted as a gay anthem. Skippy boogied over to me with a serious look in those smoky eyes. Back in the day, we’d danced to this song all the time.
He yanked me by the hand, and I went along with it. Dancing to this track meant raising your arms up every time the vocalist shouted “Awwwwwwww BABY!” With hands in the air, there were a lot of hip collisions, and frat-style beer gut bumps. It was sweaty and silly and glorious. Dancing wasn’t supposed to take itself too seriously. Skippy was in front of me, and Graham was behind me. I could feel him up against my ass. That was a new development. So I slipped a hand behind me and gave Graham’s fly a single caress. If he wanted a night at the gay bar, I’d make sure he got the whole experience.
What are friends for, right?
A moment later, his hand landed on my backside, tracing the seam of my pants. Oh, man. Payback was a bitch. So I took an experimental half step back, tucking my ass against his crotch. If he didn’t like it, all he had to do was move away from me.
He didn’t move away.
Faster than you could say “horny much?” his hand slid onto my hip. And then a Maroon Five song came on. I leaned back against Graham. And as Adam Levine’s voice crooned from the speakers, Graham and I were giving each other theMoves Like Jagger.
It was a sweaty, heated business. I ground my hips to the beat, and Graham’s body went right along with me, pulsing wherever the music took us. One song dissolved into another, and then another. Around us, glistening bodies torqued and jived. The longer we moved, the hotter I felt. It was getting late, but I didn’t want the night to end. I’d never danced with Graham in my life, and I probably never would again.
