A Party of Losers

We lost the election, and we weren't being gracious about it.

The gloomy "victory" party ended hours ago and the two dozen or so of us campaign workers who hadn't stormed off into the night sat in small clusters along the walls of the hotel bar. From a raised platform near the front of the room, a DJ wearing unnecessary sunglasses broadcast some Taylor Swift song about a young romance that wasn't working out at a volume that didn't drown out the angry expletives that would erupt at the different tables as we replayed the offences and missteps of the past months.

I found myself at a table with the candidate's spokesperson, as refined and deliberate one-on-one as she was at a news conference. She sipped her margarita on-the-rocks with a precision that left her deep red lipstick intact, dimpling the perfect skin of her cheeks, her black hair pulled back into a tight, long ponytail without so much as a single loose strand. A circle of pearls at her throat completed the high-class picture.

"I'm certainly devoted to the candidate. In fact I'm one of his first believers," she told me. "But I'm not as upset as a lot of the others in the room. I'm going to be doing this again soon. I'm a political junkie, and I'll find someone else to work for. And this time we'll win."

I half-listened to what she was saying, mostly enjoying the company and staring into her elegant face when the DJ boomed through the microphone, "It's closing time for all you losers."

Several lethal glances swiveled his direction until he quickly added, "But some fatcat will pay to keep the bar open past closing time if you'll quit your whining and get up and dance it out of your system."

"That would be the boss," said my tablemate. "He hates to see people suffer. We'd better get out on the floor—we wouldn't want to disappoint the candidate."

We joined the stream to the front of the bar as the DJ jacked up the volume for the gunshot guitar chords that open The Romantics' "What I Like About You," a clever choice of music, I thought, since I've never seen it fail to get a group dancing.

The floor was well filled by the time the drums ended the intro with an irresistible beat that had the room jumping up and down. My partner did a kind of a skate, swishing her leg backward in a slower rhythm than everyone else was hearing. The movements made her lean body bend this way then that, looking great in a matching shiny red knee-length dress and button-up jacket. Even when a scream on the record kicked off the high-energy break, she just ducked her head more intensely while the rest of the room seemed to jump higher and harder.

As the song ended abruptly with the singers' "Hey," the DJ called out for us "to loosen up. Guys get rid of those coats and ties. Gals, lose the jackets. You're way off-duty."

Ties, blazers, sweaters got laid and tossed, approximately to where people had been sitting, forming small piles around the room. I ditched my red tie and navy blazer. The spokesperson's shimmering coat lay on our table, leaving her wearing a thin, bright blue, short-sleeved, silky shell of a top.

A fast clock-ticking started the next song, "Hung Up," leaving most people standing in place, not sure how to move, until an eerie synthesizer offered a beat, then Madonna's "Every Little thing that you say or do," guided everyone into a fast swaying. My partner's thin blue shirt shimmered with the rhythm, black high heels moving side to side. Near the end of the song, when the instruments fade to just the faint clock ticking, the room slowed, everyone barely rocking back and forth, resuming their energy as the music crescendoed back to full volume.

"Hung Up" faded for the final time but before anyone had time to pause the DJ belted, "We're going to mix it up—change partners. Get with someone else."

The spokesperson flashed a quick, good-natured pout my way, giggled, then headed toward a guy I'd seen shooting videos on the campaign trail. I turned and found myself facing a tiny pair of black-framed glasses on a cute round face I'd never met. A white t-shirt contoured nicely over her medium-size breasts before disappearing into the waist of her black jeans. We didn't even have time to say "hi" before her body convulsed to the fast series of guitar explosions that start Green Day's "American Idiot." Her arms flailed to the beat along with a back-and-forth head jerking, making her short, dark brown hair do it's own dance, flipping away from one ear, then the other.

Her gyrations repeated themselves around the room, the mostly young bodies releasing months of bottled-up energy. A couple groups of three or four danced together, but most had partnered into pairs. In just about ten minutes the bar had transformed from somber self-pity to a hot, noisy swarm, limbs moving every direction. At the guitar break in "American Idiot" the whole room seemed to start bouncing in unison. My partner dipped her head and kept it lowered, as though concentrating on some spot on the floor while the rest of her body somehow kept time.

The song came to its abrupt end and the DJ ordered, "It's sock-hop time. Get those shoes off and lets slide around."

I pulled off my loafers and dropped them near the table. My dance-mate kicked her flats in the opposite direction as screaming fuzzed guitar notes started Alejandro Escovedo's "Castanets."

My partner danced holding her hands shoulder high and rocking her hips to the insistently peppy percussion and vocals. At the enigmatic lyric, "She turns me on like a pickup truck/I like her better when she walks away," she did just that, wheeling around and sashaying from me, her perfectly round butt twitching in her jeans. She glanced over her shoulder in a mocking, coquettish request for approval, before continuing her sexy shimmy, facing me with her backside. She danced like that for a while, then turned again, and moved close, face to face.

As the song ended and the DJ ordered another partner change, she kissed me hard and quick on the mouth. We turned from each other and I joined a wild-haired blonde. Her face was long and pleasant, her ivory peasant blouse arced slightly at her bust line, her denim skirt showed off nearly the full length of her legs.

As the pulsing synthesizer and guitar shuffled in the Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris gentle story of a happily married couple, "This Is Us," we clinched and moved around the floor in a two-step. I'd picked up the moves during lessons in a couple of bars over the years. She was good and we glided quickly and fluidly in a simple circle, sliding, me in my black executive socks, hers white and angle high. A few other couples showed more experience, regularly popping off dips and twirls. I couldn't help feeling my partner was probably a lot more skilled a dancer than anyone else on the floor and I was holding her back. She wasn't so much as following my lead as directing me. My hand low on her back felt subtle muscle contractions through her thin shirt, signaling direction and speed. As the song faded she leaned forward, pressing her small breasts into my chest and we spun around twice, her feet leaving the ground as we circled. The temperature in the room seemed to rise.

The DJ crooned a new directive, "Get your socks off, we're barefootin' everybody."

People bent over, and some of the women had to struggle with pantyhose. By the time I awkwardly peeled off my black executives, she had disposed of her white ankle socks.

Syncopated clapping opened MIKA's lighthearted chant, "Lollipop." My partner dipped her head from side to side, bouncing her blonde mane and rocking her shoulders to the falsetto, "Sucking too hard on your lollipop, hey, love's gonna get you down." She shook her index finger at me, joining the mocking whimsy of the song, and as it crescendoed to the wrap-up, the whole room joining in the clapping and laughing.

The DJ again ordered a partner change and I found myself with a woman I guessed was on the legal or fundraising staff, by the look of her clothes: oxford cloth button-down shirt tucked into a pinstripe pencil skirt. The blue shirt bloused over a good-sized chest and the skirt showed plenty of attractive leg. Her outfit's formality looked odd with her bare feet. She wore her blonde hair straight, just past her shoulders, and parted at the side with a few wisps of bangs. She had a bright, inviting smile and round, wire-rimmed glasses that added a nerdy kind of appeal.

The J. Geils Band exploded through the speakers with "Looking for a Love." I was impressed the DJ knew to avoid the dead studio version of the song, and played the faster and more intense live version. With the first drum crash my partner began a dance that was basically jumping up and down—a beguiling contrast to her executive clothes.

In fact, all around the room the dancing grew more frenzied, heating up both the temperature and the emotion of the room. At the song's false ending, everyone froze during the pause, then erupted into frantic bouncing as Peter Wolf wailed, "Somebody help me find my baby."

"It's getting too hot in here. Get your shirts off," barked the DJ over the fading music. "Blouses, tops, sweaters, whatever you've got. Get yourself free."

The intense dancing and quick musical switch to the loud guitar chords of John Mellencamp's "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.," brilliantly encouraged a dumb obedience to the DJ's outrageous direction. I unconsciously undid and removed my shirt down to my standard white Jockey V-neck and laid it over my blazer. As I returned to face my partner she was slowly working her way down her neckline, button by button, while dancing a kind of twist to the singer's tribute to 1960s rock and roll.

Her sexy teasing hit me in the face with what was going on in the room, and I felt like a moron for not figuring it out sooner. My bourbon buzz had me focusing on the music and enjoying the great-looking bodies moving around the room. I must have been the last to figure out where this hop was headed as I watched her fingers expose more and more skin. She finally shed her garment, showing off a dazzling pair of Cs trying to bust out of a sturdy, white lace-trimmed bra. They jiggled slightly as she swiveled, making a dazzlingly pretty picture.

I watched her and surveyed the room with new eyes. If the music kept playing, I'd be seeing a lot more of her. The dancing bodies around the room would keep losing clothes. Would they keep following the DJ's direction? Soon I could be naked with them as well. I wondered whether I would go through with exposing myself. What if I got a hard-on? My alcohol-hazed head started swimming and my face flushed. I guessed I wasn't the only one feeling that way.

"Change your mates," said the DJ, interrupting my horny train of thought. I barely had time to think about missing my geeky blonde in the tight white bra before I found myself standing in front of a tall, thin reed of a woman in a thick, ankle-length wool skirt and a white camisole that did little to hide the eager nipples on her tiny breasts. She wore her light brown hair in a bob that curved around the sharp angles of her face. Her eyes seemed fixed on a spot over my shoulder and her arms moved snakelike to Manu Chao's "Rainin in Paradise," a high-energy ska-style critique of a world filled with war and suffering.

The music was fast-paced, but she seemed to acknowledge only every other beat as her body swayed, her gaze stayed distant, and her hands carved complex arcs in the air. Her thin, silky top rippled and dragged over the points of her boobs, rising and falling above her long skirt's waist, flashing glimpses of her belly button. Her mysterious movements and distracted manner cast a spell that riveted all my attention.

Fatboy Slim's electronic stutter started the next song, "The Rockafeller Skank," sliding into the catchy funk hook that made it a popular choice at prom line dances. The DJ shouted, more insistent than ever, "It's dance-off pants-off time. Skirts, shorts, jeans. Let's see some underwear." While I was trying to figure out whether to comply with the outrageous request, and how to depants gracefully, my partner's fingers shot to the side of her waist, unhooked, unzipped, and her heavy maxi skirt crashed to the floor. I stared, stunned, at the tiniest white thong ever, more of a g-string, really. She rotated her hips in small circles over her impossibly long legs, and raised her hands raised high over her head, creating matching spirals, as the club's speakers blasted, "Right about now, the funk soul brother, check it out now," repeated over and over as virtually the song's only lyric.

I struggled out of my pants, down to my checkerboard boxers and took a moment to admire the variety of panties, thongs, pouches, and even tighty whities shaking and swaying around the room.

My partner still moved her hands high in the air, which pulled up her camisole to offer great views of the flat of her stomach, from rib cage to barely covered crotch. She turned and headed into the crowd, displaying her minimal butt. I danced along after her, slaloming through the bodies until she reached the DJ's platform in the front of the room. She turned her back to him, facing the crowded dance floor. I stayed at her side, trying to copy her movements.

"I've got one fine tush in my face up here," said the DJ. "Lookin' good, dancers."

A curvy brunette with hair piled high on her head and bright pink bra and panties positioned herself to my left, joined by a dark, bearded guy in a black sleeveless t-shirt and a black banana hammock that looked like it cradled a very large banana.

My partner had started a simple line dance step; sliding twice to the right, twice back to the left, a quarter turn, then starting over. The other three of us started joining in, and it wasn't long before everyone in the bar had spaced themselves across the floor, matching the steps. It was stunning to watch the more-than 20 underweared bodies moving together, each their own small variations, a shoulder dip here, a hip twitch there. I wondered whether we were headed toward seeing all of those people naked. Surely they would decline to reveal more skin. More likely the DJ would need to keep things from getting out of control and, and would soon be changing the direction of the evening.

"New partners," he boomed as the song faded and the speakers shook with the raspy guitars that started Bruce Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere."

And from out of nowhere suddenly the cutest little redhead started orbiting around me, skipping and spinning as The Boss crooned, "Is there anyone in love out there?" Her fiery hair was just long enough to cover hear ears and swirled and curled around her round face. Her underwear was a playful red, white, and blue stripes and stars, matching her giddy mood as she laughed and spun.

As the song started its fade-out my cock gave a little twitch in my shorts anticipating what might be next, and the DJ didn't disappoint.

"Tops off," he instructed. "T-shirts, undershirts, yes, brassieres ladies. Everybody bare those chests."

My partner complied without hesitation, reaching back to unhook her claps as Rihanna's "Shut Up and Drive" ground out its opening. The little redhead raised her multicolored underwear over her head and twirled it several times before flinging it toward the edge of the room. Her boobs were wonderful, about the size of tennis balls but looked much more substantial on her petite body. They thrust out like a pair of cones crowned with dark areolas and nipples. She interrupted my gawking at her tits by loudly clearing her throat and tugging at my v-neck. I jumped at the strong hint and became the last one topless.

I surveyed he crowd surprised no one had left the room, and no one had refused to expose themselves. Breasts of all shapes and sizes bobbed, chests from smooth to hairy danced alongside them. It had to be one of those rare group moments letting emotions explode after weeks, even months and years for some, of long, pressure-cooker days and sleepless nights, passionate for a cause, all defeated. With each song the music seemed louder, the temperature hotter, the twirlers spun faster, the jumpers hopped higher. Sweat glistened off foreheads and backs. The bare-breasted red jitterbug in front of me dipped one shoulder, then the other, looking like she was trying to pound holes in the floor with her feet. Each time Rihanna paused near the end of each chorus after, "Baby you got the keys," the two dozen voices in the club would join in, yelling, "Now shut up and drive, drive, drive."

At the next partner-changing command I was approached by a woman named Gina, who I'd never met but I knew worked on the research staff. She was reasonably attractive but, there was no way around it, she had an incredible rack that had been imagined in a number of different forms by every guy, and probably a lot of the women, on the campaign. She danced toward me rocking her head and shoulders in time to the high and fast pinpoint guitar notes of Vampire Weekend's high-energy "A-Punk." She wore only a conservative pair of flesh-colored silk panties above which her hips curved dramatically into a thin waist, then back out to the creamiest, dreamiest mammaries ever. They were pure white and somewhere in the D sizes, though proportioned well on her strikingly tall frame. They sagged just barely under their weight, elongating only slightly from a perfect sphere shape. Nipples sat up high, looking small and lost in the expansive terrain of her chest. Her breasts swayed and quivered to the dancing and the thumping of the bass tones, as her tightly-permed, shoulder-length dark brown hair flipped this way then that, keeping up with her swinging to the frenetic beat.

The song's abrupt ending quieted the room and stopped the manic movements for the moment of truth. My cock stirred inside my shorts at the thought of the scantily clad beauty in front of me losing the last of her clothing.

The DJ invaded the silence: "Let's get it on by getting it off," he said. "No more cover-ups. Take off that underwear. No more cover-ups. Show us what you've got."

I noticed few people around the room hesitating. Only two slipped from the crowd to quietly grab their clothes and slide out. For her part, Gina, looking me in the eye and laughing, barely bent at the waist as she pushed her panties downward and with two high steps, walked out of them and dropped them at her side.

I froze, transfixed by the simple beauty of her complete nakedness, from her bare feet, to the graceful slope of her shoulders, the gentle hang of those large breasts, and finally the small, dark delta at the center of the circle of her newly exposed hips.

A stirring inside my boxers reminded me my own privates needed to face the music. At least I wasn't fully swollen—maybe exposure would cause enough embarrassment to keep me from making too much of a spectacle.

I pulled down my pants and let my partially inflated, uncircumcised cock waggle rather than dangle in front of the crowd. It wasn't ashamed of anything.

The keyboard and drums had started for "Baby I'm a Star" and Gina started back and forth steps, arms straight out at her sides making small circular motions with her wrists. When Prince started singing, "Hey, look me over," she ran her hands up the outline of her nude figure, hips to boobs, then throwing her hands in the air and spinning around.

Around the room the swarm of exposed flesh was both bizarre and titillating, and somehow ordinary in its brazenness. All shapes and sizes of tits and cocks and asses waved over the dance floor. The noise, the alcohol, the long, pressure-packed campaign had all taken their toll on inhibitions, so here we were, throwing off our normal decorum along with our clothes.

When the Prince paused then gave a little "yip," Gina danced closer to me, our faces almost touching, her tits brushing across my chest, pussy grinding into my groin, ending all hope of controlling my erection. She pulled away to stare down and admire her achievement, then moved in again, wrapped her arms around my neck, and we danced in that clinch, tits spreading out along my chest and her spot of pubic hair scratching at my hips, until the song came to its sudden end.