Hadean
Ally brushed her white-blonde hair and considered her clothes chair: a mass of tangled clean and dirty clothes, including her work uniform which was covered in ketchup and maple syrup from today’s brunch shift. What do you wear on a secret solo gay-bar outing? Tonight would be a desperate attempt to take home a woman and know for sure what she had only suspected before: that she was a lesbian. Or bi. Queer. A Kinsey four, or something like that. She suspected that her preteen obsession with Grease had more to do with Sandy in a leather cat-suit than it did with a slick-haired Danny in a letter jacket as her mom had originally assumed.
Could she coalesce an outfit from this mass of cosmic rubbish on her chair? Was there even a chair under there? She yanked the strap of a lacy green bralette at the bottom of the pile and it all came tumbling violently down.
Ally took a cab to the bar (the tips this morning were well worth the condiment coating) and stepped out in a sparkly deep blue crop top and black high-waisted jeans. She had worried she didn’t look queer enough, so before she left she applied a single tone of orange eyeshadow out to her temples like she’d seen on queer icon King Princess. And, so that there’d be no confusion, she put in earrings she’d found at Chapters: a little silver Venus symbol for each lobe. It was freezing out and the air hurt her skin, but when she opened the door to the club she was hit with a hot blast of wind. An attendant was smiling from under a red masquerade mask with two long and spindled ram’s horns out the top, waiting for her. Ally paid cover and the attendant stamped her hand with a little blue planet. When she reached the dancefloor, it was even hotter, and sweat on her hand blurred the planet’s hard edges.
Water. She needed water.
The bar was at the back wall, across the busy dancefloor—a nebula of moving bodies blocked her way, bumping and parting in what seemed like a chaotic mess of lights and pheromones. Each person was glowing: gaseous auras of queer selfhood merged, bodies collided, separated, colourful and vibrating. No easy path, so Ally began to push through.
Immediately, a pointy shoulder pad whacked her in the face.
“Sorry babe,” a drag queen with red lips and a full beard shouted over the music. “I just can’t control my girls!” The queen lightly touched the points on her shoulders and then went back to grinding on her twink partner’s red skinny jeans. Ally admired the couple’s colour coordination.
“That’s okay!” Ally shouted back, but her voice was absorbed by the abyss.
Squishing past a couple of women dancing intimately, Ally noticed that the closest woman, with front bangs and tattoos, had sweat dripping down her back and arms in streams. Ally battled a primal urge to lick it up. When they inevitably rubbed arms as she passed, Ally felt the sticky cool wetness.
She collided with others in this way until she finally reached the bar.
“A water with lots of ice, and a whiskey sour,” she yelled. “Please.”
The bartender nodded. “Sure.”
He dropped the drinks in front of her so hard she was surprised the glasses didn’t break. She drank the water quickly, moved on to the radioactive cocktail, and then ordered two more of the same.
Back in the crowd, Ally began to loosen up. She relaxed her shoulders, unclenched her jaw. They were playing Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know,” and people were spinning around, kicking and flipping about like the dancers in the video. The dancefloor seemed darker and more chaotic than ever.
She was just getting into a rhythm when a guy in a black leotard accidentally smacked the side of her head, hard. She felt a pounding in her ear. The guy mouthed, “I’m so sorry,” as he was yanked away forcibly by another dancer.
Regaining equilibrium, Ally touched her left ear. The lobe was bleeding, her earring gone. That earring had been her beacon. A part of her had been brutally ejected, launched into the crowd of celestial mess around her. Now she only had one earring, one woman symbol. Not even her fucking earrings could be gay enough. She was considering leaving this whole endeavor behind in exchange for her bed and a large cheese pizza when someone approached.
“Are you all right? Are you lost?” Although she had to yell to be heard over the music, her voice was calm.
Ally touched her ear again. “Some guy smashed into me and my earring is gone.”
The woman leaned in to Ally’s unharmed ear so she didn’t have to yell and said, “I’ll help you find it. What’s it look like?”
Now, Ally leaned in. Her rescuer smelt familiar; it was possible they were wearing the same perfume.
“It’s a little Venus symbol,” Ally said.
The woman smiled glossily.
“Wild!” she shouted. “You lost one Venus and found another.”
After a brief and hapless look for the missing piece, Ally realized the earring didn’t matter so much anymore. She knew it was out there being kicked around on the dancefloor, maybe even completing a lunar orbit around her as she danced with Venus. It seemed like everyone on this dancefloor was circling each other; song after song Ally would bump into the same bodies, share side glances with the same faces.
Ally and Venus danced close together and far apart, kissed a couple times. Ally appreciated how Venus seemed to know when to kiss her so that it matched the tempo of the music: hard and fast right before the beat dropped or slow and gentle in the lull between songs.
Ally was drenched in sweat. Her top was long-sleeved, and she now realized what a colossal mistake this had been.
“Are you, like, completely overheating?” she yelled.
“I’ve never sweat so much in my life!” Venus replied.
Ally looked around. Most people here were showing infinitely more skin than she was; in fact, a muscular guy just walked by in nothing but a leather speedo and chest harness.
“That’s it,” Ally shouted.
“What?”
Ally crossed her arms, pulled her crop top over her head, and threw it in the general direction of the nearest wall. Even though the crop top had been a relatively light layer, she felt happier instantly. More embodied.
Venus nodded, beaming. “Great idea,” she shouted, and took off her shirt too. To Ally’s surprise, they were wearing the same bralette. Only Venus’s was smaller, moulded to her little ribcage.
Ally suddenly felt hotter still, insecure and jealous.
“I’m gonna get another drink,” she yelled.
From the bar, Ally saw a guy at the center of the dancefloor wearing all white, glowing in the ultraviolet light. Even his hair was bleach-white, like hers, and Ally wondered if she’d been glowing all night, too. He was wearing white sneakers and they radiated as he stepped side to side to the beat. He had his arms in the air, fingertips extended and his whole upper body was swaying. He seemed to be at peace with everybody on the dancefloor, entirely unbothered by the heat. Seeing him calmed Ally, and she resolved to relax, engrossed in his magnetic pull.
Ally entered the mob as a David Bowie song came on, and she was immediately smashed into by a woman wearing hotpants and nipple tassels. One tassel brushed Ally’s arm as the woman pulled away and gave Ally goosebumps.
Something like religion
Despite their momentary interaction, Ally felt extremely close to the tassel woman. They were connected as Ally continued closer to her glowing target at the center. She bumped somebody in an orange wig, grabbed their hand for a second, and let go. She didn’t know why she did that, but it felt right. The face under the wig smiled at her and their teeth were glowing purple.
Dancing face to face
Ally pushed forward slightly, but she felt the crowd was doing the work for her. She didn’t really have to push anymore; rather, she let herself be swayed to where she needed to be. The bearded drag queen from earlier resurfaced, and they touched bare shoulder to pointed shoulder.
“Hey!” Ally yelled.
“Hey baby!”
“Kiss me!”
The queen planted a big wet lipstick-y kiss on Ally and disappeared again into the crowd. Ally touched her face where the beard had scratched her.
Something like a drowning
After what felt like hours of moving and being moved, Ally realized she’d been in generally the same place quite a while now. She also realized she was being bumped more and more gently. She could see the man in white, although she wasn’t quite close enough to talk to him. Which was fine. She had found where she belonged on this crazy galactic dancefloor. She couldn’t see tassels, shoulder points, or even Venus. But she felt them, she felt a magnetism to them just knowing they were out there dancing, just like her. She didn’t feel lonely.
Dancing out in space
From her spot on the dancefloor, Ally, still shaking her shoulders and tapping her feet, looked up. She hadn’t noticed before that there were balconies on either side of the room, and now, on one of them, was a man and a dog. Ally could’ve sworn the dog had three heads but probably only because of the whiskey sours and dizzying heat. The man locked eyes with Ally. He was grinning, his dark, shoulder-length waves and long, curly beard framing his face. He motioned with a large staff and glitter confetti began to rain on the gyrating bodies. With his other hand, he put on a cap, winked at Ally, and disappeared.
Ally and the others continued to dance in the heat under the cloud of solar dust and glitter, content with the rubbing and colliding of bodies, the peculiar polyphony of belonging.
Alex Prong is a bartender, fern enthusiast, and writer who prefers writing pieces that blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction, and is currently working on an autobiographical novel about her polyamorous relationship with her partner. She enjoys finding newer and truer routes to the truth through poetry and comedy.
