i met him: the dancer

I met him on the dance floor.

Well, I don’t know if “met” is even the right word. It’s just that one minute he wasn’t there, and the next minute he was everywhere. 

He was up, he was down.

He was in front of me, he was behind me. 

He grabbed my hand and wound me towards him like a yoyo, shouting “HELLO, MY NAME IS -“
and then spun me back out. 

In and out I spun, never quite able to figure out what exactly the name he kept repeating was. 

“YOU REALLY WANNA DANCE?” he yelled over the roaring music.

“YES!” I yelled back, giddy with bass and beer and the feeling of being a girl wearing all black on a Friday night in New York City.

“YES, YOU WHAT?” he screamed, dipping me on to the floor and lacquering the tips of my hair in puddles of beer and sweat.

Inhibitions forgotten somewhere in the ladies room with my my purse and phone, I screamed back:

“YES! YES, I REALLY WANNA DANCE!”

Suddenly, his voice got impossibly quiet as he whispered, “Well, ok then.”

And in an instant, I was in the air.

Above the dance floor I floated, a beautiful bar ballerina. I was Clara in the Nutcracker! Sandy in the flying car! Amelia disappearing above the Pacific! 

I WAS FLYING! 

Three times, he spun me above the noise and the motion before lowering me back into reality. Three rotations around the disco ball sun, a planet pulled by the force field of a stranger.

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