"The lights that move sideways and up and down/The beat takes you over and spins you round/Our hearts steady-beating, the sweat turns to cold/We're slaves to the DJ and out of control"
The music is so loud it deafens out all other senses. I see the beat in the pulse and sway of the dance floor and feel it in my feet and hips and hands. My body moves regardless of me and sweat and slicks up my whole body. My thighs are moist where they run together as I sway and my hands encounter wetness as I run them down my bare sides.
The dance floor is packed and hundreds of bodies move and grind in time, in unison. I feel connected and I feel alive. Everywhere around me people are bumping and swaying against me. A girl and a guy are making love on the dance floor, she is sliding up and down against him and every time she comes down she brushes against me. The music and the heat and the smoke and the stench of lust in the club is driving me crazy. Every time I lift my eyes, animal eyes are there to greet them and suck them in.
The music catches momentarily as dark, thumping bass vibrates in my internal organs. Then something soft and spicy and Spanish begins to play. My hips sway voluptuously of their own accord. The dance floor materialises behind me.
His hands are on my waist. They are huge hands. They almost encircle my middle. He moves my hips and they sway and when I lean back, I am moving in time to his body. All I can feel is his height and the firmness of his body and we sway and sweat. The music is seducing me. I am dripping.
The song finishes an indeterminate time later and something with heavy, African drums begins, pounding, relentless. His hands turn me and I look up, up, up and my stomach drops and I see his blue, light blue, impossibly blue eyes. His hair is black and long, tied at his neck and escaping in straggly wet strands down his face.
When I reach up I can barely bring my hands together behind his neck. He takes my weight and eases me against his body. His hard arms circle me, his hard thigh against mine, the tautness of his abdomen. The beat commands us and we dance as one.
I don't realise what is happening. People are bumping and grinding against my back in the full club. Someone bumps harder than normal and the man moves me out of the way. The girl continues to fall drunkenly to the floor. Her margarita glass smashes. I feel something wet against my foot.
The man leans down and picks the girl up. Hey eyes are half open and vacant. Another man takes her and half carries her off the dance floor. People around us have cleared a little space for the incident but continue dancing.
I look down at the wetness on my foot and in the pulse of the strobe light I see it is bright red. I rest my hand on the large, hard chest of the man and try to examine my foot. I can't feel a thing. Is it even my blood?
He sweeps me off my feet, literally, and carries me out into the windy, salty night. The surf crashing is suddenly audible with the pounding of the club behind. He carries me like I weigh nothing. My face is on the level of his chest and I can smell the fabric of his shirt and his cologne and his sweat and it is a heady combination.
He puts me down on a wooden table of an empty restaurant and kneels before me. Slowly, tenderly, he unties the ribbons of my high heel and unwraps my foot like it's a present. Blood has soaked through the ribbons on the outer side of my foot and run down the heel. He turns my foot tenderly and examines the cut. When he turns his icy blue scrutiny up to my eyes, my heart does a little flip flop. I want to say something but my tongue dries out and my throat closes.
"We're gonna have to clean this up." His voice is deep. It melts me. I want to say something but my vocal cords refuse to cooperate.
He picks my up effortlessly, even carrying my shoe along, and starts down the steps that lead out of the building and onto the windy sidewalk next to the beach. Drunk kids are weaving in and out of the building and somewhere on the beach a drunken party is causing a ruckus. The wind is warm and tastes like seawater on my lips. I want to protest but I really don't want to.
I float in his arms down the block, two, three blocks, and then we turn up a narrow side street. Cars are everywhere and as we get further from the main street, the noises quiet down. Squat coastal trees reach their knobbly branches together to form a dark tunnel over the street. I can hear the man's heartbeat. It is slow and steady and reassures me. Surely serial killers' hearts would beat faster?
We carry on for several blocks and his heart doesn't change, his breathing remains comfortable. This man is a bull. I suddenly think to get a little bit scared. I wouldn't stand a chance. He stops outside a small house with a Frangipani tree in the front and puts me down ever so gently. I balance on one foot and look up at him. He smiles and I can't breathe. His smile is beautiful and open.
He unlocks the gate and carries me over the threshold over to a dusty wooden bench with peeling paint. He locks the gate again. I might just die tonight. But I feel that would be okay.
I can't see much as he unlocks the front door and then carries me into the cool, dark interior of the quiet little house. "Careful." He murmurs as he carries me past dark shapes in the darkness and finally into a cramped room. He puts me down and I realise it's a bathroom and then he flips the light switch.
