I’m two Long Islands deep on the patio, harassing passersby for spare cigarettes with my rabble of usual suspects. It’s too cold, the music inside is underwhelming, and my feet feel like they’ve been trimmed around the edges to squeeze into these pumps. I need another drink. I break from the group and head inside, where I am greeted by the reflective, latex-clad milieu of fetish night. The line for the women’s room is out the door, an endless chain of half-naked divas dolled up in leather and hardware. I brush past them hurriedly, blowing kisses and tossing haphazard hellos to familiar faces. All of this would have been exciting, perhaps even shocking three years ago, but routine has a funny way of creeping up on you.

The line for the bar extends even further, too long for eleven dollars of swill. I guess I’ll go back to the girls, I think to myself. Perhaps they’d like to dance. But when was the last time we danced? I’m on my own. At that thought, there is a tingle at the base of my spine, like hot breath creeping up my dress. I haven’t been alone here since my first night; freshly twenty-one and horribly overdressed, my makeup harsh and juvenile. I’d never danced before—nor did I have any idea how—and the thought of approaching a dancefloor had turned my stomach sour. I was a visitor, an onlooker, shiny and new and scared of everything, and I came back every week to see more. Somewhere along the way, I must have faded into the scenery.

Now I face a sea of undulating bodies, beckoning me closer, a writhing mass of reaching hands. My stomach churns. As I watch, the flesh parts, revealing a girl with outstretched arms at the center. She gyrates wildly, the strobe lights reflecting off her iridescent bikini and bouncing around the room. Through her tangled hair, I spot a twinkle of bright red. She is looking right at me—into me. She reaches toward me as the crowd begins to close around her again. I must move quickly. Their movements synchronize as I squeeze between them, a hive mind with a shared heartbeat, pulsating in time to the rhythm. I am pulled towards the center, towards that girl at the heart, and I catch glimpses of her between flying hair and half-naked torsos. It spits me out in the center.

I can see her up close now—everything but her face. There is just enough space for the two of us, right beneath the disco ball. I can hear her in my head, Dance with me. Unable to resist, my shaking arms raise above my head, and she mirrors me precisely. She and I, and the flesh all around us, move at once. My stomach boils, the lights are dazzling and rapid, and I close my eyes in an attempt to steady my sudden vertigo. I am unsure of the amount of time that passes or if I am still inside of the club I started in. It is the first time again; it is a brand new first time. When I open my eyes, she is gone.

I am surrounded by beating hearts and smiling faces. This place has been here all along, right under the nose that I have turned up toward it from just a few feet away. I was never bored by this place, but rather bored of watching it move as I stood flush with the wallpaper. Here in three dimensions It is warm and vivacious. Movement loosens the knots in my back as I melt into the dancers. The tide in my gut calms once more, receding back as a cloud of unsureness slowly clears. The girl is gone, and tonight I take her place with arms outstretched.