Dance For No One Else

She knew she was being stupid, but there were so few things. The club wasn't glamorous, trendy, or even relatively clean. In truth it bordered right there on the edge of being condemned by the city.

Everyone was there for a different reason, everyone there knew she was there to tease. The beat of the music wrapped around her like an assiduous exoskeleton. The beat crawled into her ears like a poisonous incest eating away at her self-doubt and her fears as they creped in and out of her consciousness; they offered her tantalizing suggestions that flushed her skin and raised her heart rate.

While dancing in that self-sustaining cocoon of an alternate reality, she could let her self-criticism slip off as if it was nothing more than old useless shroud. She could pull out of her soul the smothered feminine fluidity of her nature, after just a few bars of the right song.

He watched her once a week, every week like clockwork walk across the dance floor reeking of self-inflicted bête-noir, completely aware that she believed she wasn't worth any amount of attention.

He sat at the corner of the bar with a perfect view of her. He leaned on the grimy bar, thumb tucked under his sharp chin, pointer finger propped up against a thrice broken cheekbone, middle finger resting against the bridge of his saddle nose, while his ring finger perched lightly on his substantial lower lip.

He enjoyed her ritual with the awkward start, which led to the uncomfortable first few moments of finding her rhythm, and then finally the fruition into a free flowing creature of movement. He could physically see her embrace the change. Her neck and shoulders would loosen and her head would till up towards the sun or an invisible god. The veil of thick straight hair would fall back revealing eye. That would go from obtuse to fire filled Nin.

She would start creating circles with different parts of her body. Head, spine, hips, feet, elbows, wrist, and fingers, each would find their own rhythm or melody to follow. Each movement would pull his eye away from the other demanding his attention and he would sit there and ponder the individually attributes whichever body part was on display at the moment.

He could tell how good the D.J. was by if she hesitated or faltered in any of her gyrations and couldn't think of anything more immediate criticism of their performance, even if others missed the mistake.

Half way into the evening, she would take a discreet personal inventory trying her best to not to come back to reality. And at the next possible moment between songs she would slip out of her safe little corner and slink like an ally cat around other dancers and voyeurs towards the darkest end of the bar. She'd slip two dollars over the counter to the bartender and snatch the bottle of water before it could hit the tack counter top. Crack the seal and raise it to her lips, desperate to finish it before she felt the need to dance again.

He would sit as still as a python as the heat from her body washed over him, examine every muscle of her throat as it constricted around the surge of water. Observe as she heard another favorite song mixed in, did she know her eyes dilated? Did she know that once she started sweating he could see the delicate lace pattern that edged her bra? Did she know he could see the faint curve of her belly button? Could she truly be oblivious or did know?

Maybe her mixed signals were the allure. Her clothing was in all honesty terribly plain. Her ordinary face illumined by the bars backlighting was bare of everything but flush and perspiration. Her hair was a tousled frizzy mess and her perfume only the smelled of clean fresh sweat.

The water having cooled her, the thick stick of hair on her neck was now too much of a distraction. She pulled a band off her wrist and with a few quick sweeps collected the bunch up into a tight ponytail.

For a moment, he could feel the exposure felt awkward and uncomfortable. The outside world threatened to inflict itself on her senses. Desperately to relax she would close her eyes and listened to the music trying to find pattern.

She was close enough for him to see the movement of her eyes behind their closed lids. The small hairs on her face and the faded scars that trickled down her hair line and marched over her shoulders to spill down her arms, chest and back.

She felt eyes on her, his eyes and where in the normal world she would falter and flee. But, over the months few people ever approached her here. He never considered it and after awhile his attention became part of the backdrop.

Sometimes when emboldened by the music she would imagine that she was beautiful and was dancing just for him. No, she never looked for him, never searched for his approval. It had to be a secret because discovery could only lead to misery.

So, late into the night in the darkest part of the bar, her dance would take on a different rhythm. Some women would try to bump and grind or shimmy and slide. Instead, her face would relax and a smirk curled the edges. Her hands searched out her face like a lover in the dark. They played over her heart, tapping out a seductive cryptogram. Her hips would appear to try and spill out over her jeans one at a time only to be snatched up by invisible hands only to be released, over, and over again.

Lust ate at his heart. It was game he played. There were only two things he had to remember and hold true and millions that he had to reject and avoid. He had wanted at one time every one of those millions of things, until they tasted like goofer dust in his mouth. Until he even grew bored with that feeling and moved on, the emotion was so empty, he didn't know how to describe it had anyone asked, but once every era there was a spark, never a flame. That would imply more, but just a spark, and that would be enough.

He knew that for a short while, she would arrive with the regularity of the tides. She would bloom and turn just ever so slightly in his direction. With the last song she would fold up in on herself and that would be it until the next time.

And one day she wouldn't be there. Because of rejection, age, or finally death and once again he would be without his illusion.

Because it was never more than a girl dancing for herself in a crappy rundown bar the promise would remain pure, the deal unbroken, one night a week that in the end could be over looked for the great good provided.

Last call bantered about, the music died into the background, and his dancer came back down into her body and with a shaky sigh paid for one more bottle of water and headed off.

Sitting in the middle of hundreds of humans, he to sighed and slowly let himself be pulled back into the emptiness that is...