Dances to the surging techno beat as simmering spotlights wash over her, blue-white and yellow-pink shining on her skin dark as our species' African womb. She is visible only in flashes of pulsing light and must be assimilated in pieces: camouflage tank top, orange and green capris, stone-shaped shaved head, huge smile and eyes shut tight.
Arms gyrating and bare feet pounding the floor, she creates the illusion that it is she who is producing the music, that the music is merely dancing to her rhythm, struggling to keep up with her movements in the center of the dance floor.
Is it the center, or is that another illusion?
It is the center, Aly thinks to herself, for in a circle with no perimeter every point is the center. There are other dancers drifting through that space, but Eurasia is the glowing center from which the rest of them spread to darkness.
It is that darkness, the darkness outside of the circle where the spotlights do not touch, the darkness which gives the circle its lack of perimeter, it is that darkness in which Aly hides, watching the beacon shine in the center of the floor.
Sinuous, Eurasia undulates in the ice-hot glow of fluorescent lighting. She is something strange and glorious, and none of the girls will dare to come near her.
Aly dares. She steps into the light, entering a round spiral that will take her into Eurasia's orbit. A prisoner of her gravity, she spins around dumpy white dykes and lipstick-sporting femmes to move in close to the girl in the center. She keeps a safe distance, a satellite dancing in the light that reflects from her.
Eurasia's eyes open. "Come here, stud," she says, and opens her arms wide to beckon Aly forward. Eurasia's hands slide over her dyke-shaved head, and they dance close together in the warmth of each other's bodies.
They dance for a long time in the darkness and fire-light in the center of it all, alone but for each other, silent but for the music. Finally Aly speaks, leaning in low over Eurasia's shoulders to shout into her ear. "Where's your shoes?"
"Left 'em at home," she answers.
"Where's home?"
"Don't got one."
Aly licks her lips, running wet palms down Eurasia's sweat-slicked shoulders. "Then i'm taking you home with me."