Our nights were filled with dancing.
Sunset was the time when everyone went back to camp to eat and get ready for the night. The encroaching darkness transformed the flat, dusty desert landscape into a surreal alien world, where art cars suddenly lit up and people became dots of colored lights moving in the vast black. Stars lit up the sky, a shock to this mostly urban crowd.
And then the fires would start. Not campfires, but explosions of flames as art cars and campgrounds would light up their flame throwers. An art car would shoot a twenty foot long tongue of flame into the sky, suddenly lighting up the surrounding desert. A loud "whomph!" would accompany the flame.
My favorite thing to do was to walk across the Playa to the other side of the horse shoe of camps. Somewhere near the middle of the open space I would stop and look around. Everywhere were lights. Tents were lit up in the distance, creating a low lying glow. But all around were people, bicycles and art cars, each lit up with individual colored lights and moving around the place, creating a strange and glowing world, like luminescent fishes in the darkest reaches of the ocean, or a city on Mars.
The art cars especially were spectacular. A giant yellow rubber ducky floated across the playa, lit from the inside. Another had a neon shark's fin, twelve feet tall, across its back. It prowled the Playa slowly. The Princess, a bus converted into a land-roaming ancient frigate (sails, rope, and timber mast included), gracefully crossed the darkness. Everywhere balls of fire rose into the sky.
Alyssa was suitably impressed.
Alyssa was wearing her big red coat over a loose black tank top that tied with strings like a bathing suit. Her pink tutu hung around her waist, pale blue thigh high leggings covering her legs, her tall moccasin boots laced firmly to her feet. I knew she was wearing a purple pair of boy shorts under the tutu, which I had enjoyed watching her step into. I had on my Chinese print silk pants with a mesh T-shirt on top. A silver jacket and a small top hat completed my outfit. We both had battery powered string lights wrapped around us so that we would be visible in the darkness.
We were buzzed already, feeling loose and happy, taking sips from a hip flask full of bourbon. We had hit the smaller dance parties on the way out, stopping for a brief moment to shake our booties. I knew that one of Alyssa's disappointment in life was that despite all her dance training, she had never been able to express herself fully with her body. She craved the release, but dancing was a job to her now, not a means of expression. Now, here, she was able to really let her body speak.
She was skipping ahead, dancing to the distant music that was echoing through the darkness.
"Are you having fun?' I asked.
"Yes!" she replied, prancing back to me to throw her arms around my neck.
"You?" She asked, giving my lips a peck.
"A ton of fun." I replied, as I let my hands wander down and under her tutu to grab a handful of her tight ass.
She wriggled her hips, pushing against my hands.
"I wanna keep dancing." she said, letting go of me.
I held on to a corner of her boy shorts, which caused her to twirl around.
"You don't need those to do that!" I said as I pawed at her underwear, trying to get a better hold.
She squealed and tried to bat my hands away, which only made me redouble my efforts. I wrapped my arms around her waist, my hands now fishing down into the back of her pants. She squirmed and took a fake stern tone.
"Don't you dare! I'm warning you!" she said, but she also did not try to stop my hands.
She broke free of my arms, and tried running away. She threw her arms up and started running and giggling, me in hot pursuit behind her. I kept reaching for her shorts, pulling them down half a cheek which always caused her to shriek and laugh.
Finally she was laughing so hard she couldn't run anymore. I jumped on the chance and grabbed hold of her. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder, her legs kicking up.
"What are you doing!?" she exclaimed.
"You wanted to go dancing? I'm taking you dancing!" I said as I started walking towards a distant dance camp.
"Put me down!" she ordered, while smacking my ass.
I might have squealed like a girl, which made her laugh. But then I smacked her ass, which happened to be right next to my face since her belly was draped over my shoulder. She yelped at the spanking. I let my hand stay on her ass, grabbing a solid handful. I loved how tight her ass was, so firm and round.
I grabbed hold of the back of her shorts and pulled them down. They came straight down to her knees. She screamed and laughed and objected, but to no avail. I kept one hand on her back to keep her from falling, the other hand busy pulling and tugging at her shorts to try to move them past her kicking feet.
"Stop! Don't you dare!" she shouted out.
"If you keep squirming you're gonna make me drop you!" I warned her.
"I'm going to scream, and they'll come and arrest you." she said, pushing herself up off my back in order to look me in the face.
"Ok, fine." I said, and plopped her down on her feet in front of me.
