Ecstasy on the Dance Floor

“Nice to finally see the real you, Melanie.”

Chuck the bouncer snickered smugly as he looked up and handed her back her ID. He’d been using this line for the past year and a half and somehow it never got old.

“Thanks,” she muttered half-heartedly and proceeded to open the large, nondescript door in front of her and stepped inside.

Her nails scraped against the floral green wallpaper, occasionally snagging on parts that were peeling as she ascended the long, narrow staircase. The further she climbed, the more violently the walls vibrated beneath her fingertips as the music grew louder—a constant thump, thump, thump of bass. It was pitch black except for the blue and red strobe lights flashing within the doorframe ahead of her.  

“Maybe we’ll finally fall through the floor tonight,” rang a voice from behind. Mel looked back at her friend Sarah, chuckled and gave her an exaggerated shrug. “Maybe.”

Mel could remember the first time she went up these steps during her freshman year, and exactly how she felt in that moment. It was all a bit alarming at first—the smell of stale smoke and sweat, the lack of a handrail and the way the floorboards creaked and bowed under her feet. And now, almost four years later, it all just seemed so… normal.

JD’s was the closest nightclub to campus, if you could even call it that. It was really a sports bar on the first floor full of 50+ year old regulars, and a run-down dance floor on the second where they turned a blind eye to fake IDs.

She’d scaled those steps hundreds of times before. But unbeknownst to her, she was climbing toward something entirely different tonight.

Mel and Sarah reached the top, took a right and slung their jackets over a couple of torn black barstools. The small, dimly lit bar was surrounded by scantily dressed, sweaty bodies. Shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, they swarmed forward, arms outstretched attempting to get the bartender’s attention. Sarah nudged her right arm into the crowd and called out an order for two rum and diets. As she disappeared into the sea of college students, Mel turned to scan the room.

Despite its obvious shortcomings, JD’s was always packed. About ten feet from the bar there was a low partition wall with stools, and beyond that a sizable dance floor. A DJ stood on a platform in the back left corner. Every inch of the wall behind him was covered in graffiti—including three cardboard-covered windows. Mel watched as a wave of bodies gyrated and dipped to Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz’s “Get Low” as Sarah emerged to her left, holding two plastic cups full of ice and a brownish liquid. She handed one to Mel and flashed her a sad smile.

“God, I can’t believe this could be my last time ever at JD’s.”

Mel couldn’t believe it either. How had four years flown by so fast? It felt like just yesterday she had accidentally pushed open the wrong door in her freshman dormitory. Sarah was sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat, in the middle of a vast landscape of bright pink and leopard print. Her bed sheets, comforter, slippers, curtains—everything. Her long dark hair was in a high ponytail, and it fell over her shoulder as she looked up, smiled and gave Sarah an enthusiastic “Hey!” She looked like Jasmine from Aladdin riding a hot pink magic carpet. It was the closest Mel had ever come to believing in fate.  

But now, Sarah was leaving her for a job with a big engineering firm in New Jersey. Despite her girly exterior, Sarah was a badass Mechanical Engineering major. Since the beginning of college, she had gotten it right.

Unlike Mel. Who the hell majors in Creative Writing, anyway? She wished she could go back in time and shake some sense into her 18-year-old self. Then she could have avoided her quarter-life crisis all together. What was she going to do with her life? No clue. The easiest solution was to dive straight into a fifth-year master’s program while she figured it out. She was folding into the fetal position beneath the ruse of an educational blanket. It was comforting sameness coupled with shame and uncertainty.

Sarah’s words finally registered, and she felt immediate guilt. This was supposed to be their last big night out together, but her mood was already ruining it. Sarah could sense her uneasiness.

She downed her drink, grabbed Mel’s arm and said, “Come on, one last dance.”

They briskly made their way around the partition wall and broke through a gaggle of girls at the edge of the dance floor.

That’s when she saw him.

He held a drink in his left hand, and his right pulsed toward the ceiling as he bounced and weaved through the crowd. A single outlier in an army of methodical rollers and squatters. He was tall, maybe 6’1 or 6’2, slim but athletic build with short dark hair. He wore a plain black t-shirt and pale blue shorts, inadvertently tugging them up in between bounds. There was something unreal about him; the almost animated look on his face and how he leapt across the dance floor so blissfully unaware. No following a beat, no fitting in with the masses. Mel could think of only one word: freedom.

They had reached the dance floor now. Mel strode directly toward him, unconsciously giving in to an invisible magnetic force now guiding her body. A single red strobe light illuminated the floor between them like a 15-foot runway. And then somehow, magically, he was in front of her. Had he met her halfway? She couldn’t be sure.

His eyes were dark and deep-set, but his expression was warm and lit up with a wide smile of perfectly white, straight teeth. Mel remained in a trancelike state as he grabbed her hand and began spinning her around the dance floor. Colors swirled by and the lyrics to whatever song was playing gradually muted. Her world turned silent but the rhythm palpitating through her every pore remained. She swung underneath his arms and twirled with a dizzying frenzy, their fingertips never losing each other’s grip. They must have been surrounded by 50 people, but it was only the two of them.

It was complete euphoria.

She became unaware of time. Had it been mere minutes or hours since he first took her hand? She was now mindful that her hair was wet and matted at the back of her neck, but she didn’t care. She would stay in this elated daze for as long as possible, shutting out the worry of others’ opinions and fear of the future. She poured herself into the moment; red and blue blazed against her shut eyelids and her body spiraled and swayed instinctively. She was one with her surroundings—a fluid, graceful form of art. This was where she lived now.   

And just as suddenly as it began, her surroundings slowly spun back into focus and he was there, six inches from her face.

This time she knew they met halfway. Their lips collided gently, perfectly interlocked and paused in place. An abrupt jolt of exhilaration consumed her. It rushed outward, escaping through the tips of her fingers and toes and hung in the air between them, faintly buzzing and reverberating like electricity.

Their lips separated and they were then cheek to cheek, his nose buried in her now wild and unkempt hair. His lips were at her ear.

“My name’s Brian. Can I get your number?”

A shiver—fast as lightning—traveled from her earlobe, down her neck to her side, taking root in her upper thigh. It sat there pulsing as he slowly pulled back and handed her his phone. Mel smiled down at the thick silver flip phone, pried it open and thumbed in her phone number. Of course he would have this phone.

Just as she handed it back there was a tug on her shoulder, spinning her around.

“Hey, it’s last call. Let’s get out of here,” Sarah said. She had both their jackets hanging on her left forearm and a pleading expression on her face.

Mel looked back toward her mysterious dance partner, but he was gone. She quickly scanned the dance floor but there was no trace of him. Sarah began dragging Mel toward the exit by her elbow. Years ago, they had pinpointed exactly when to leave JD’s. It was strategic to ensure you weren’t stuck behind a mob of people all trying to get down the same narrow staircase. Mel knew this, but still grew increasingly irritated as they traveled downward.

Sarah shoved open the heavy black door at the bottom and they stumbled onto the sidewalk. A rush of cold air slapped Mel square in the face and centered her back in reality. What had just happened? She had the sudden urge to ask Sarah if the guy she’d been dancing with was real but didn’t want to sound crazy.

Other club-goers began to pour onto the dimly lit sidewalk behind them. Mel crept toward the curb and began skimming the crowd, almost frantically. Her eyes fluttered left to right, left to right. Black shirt, blue shorts. But nothing.

Brian. Had she even told him her name? What had seemed like an everlasting encounter at the time was slowly being reduced to a series of half-remembered details.

God, she was crazy. What was she doing? She never acted like this. Again, a single word crept into her mind before she could stop it: fate. Her cynical tendencies attempted to push it down, but flashbacks of ecstasy on the dance floor kept it afloat.

Sarah had hailed a cab and was circling around the back to get in.

The balls of Mel’s feet began to ache as the adrenaline slowly drained out of her, and she shivered as the 2 a.m. bleakness took hold. It was over. What was now a life-altering experience would surely become nothing but a fleeting moment—a mere blip—in her life’s story.

Mel opened the car door and looked back once more at the horde of people, now gathered in smaller groups, laughing loudly and passing cigarettes. One last failed attempt. She slumped onto the cracked pleather backseat and pulled the door shut. A resounding thud.

The cab took off, gradually increasing speed as streetlights overhead whirred by like a single file line of large fireflies into the night sky behind her. There was a soft buzz in her lap. She peered down at a single word illuminated on her phone’s screen.

“Hey.”