Let's Go Dancing

Last night T. and I drove over to the east side to go to a strip mall bar and dance. It is a kick-ass cover band with a lead female and two sidekicks, and several male supporting musicians. I had tried to persuade Becky to join us, but she waffled till the last minute, then pooped out. I was a little disappointed until T. confessed she was a little relieved.

"I like Becky, I really do," T. explained. "But I think sometimes it's nice, just the two of us."

In fact, T. thinks my friends are flakes, and she thinks Becky has "issues" about my relationship with her. "She just seems a little negative about our relationship," T. complained once. It's true. Both Becky and Guido always warn me I'm heading for a fall.

We walked into the bar, me wearing a beaded, heavily smocked black velvet tunic with a square neckline. I felt like an extra from The Tudors. T. was en drab in jeans and sweater. To our surprise, some of T.'s friends were there, also en drab. It's always shocking the first time I see these people as "guys." Chris, at least, was recognizable, perhaps as Christine's younger brother. With his large myopic eyes and dark hair pulled into a queue, he looked like the computer nerd he plays at work. His wife was there, too, occasionally dancing, but mostly sitting there in the dim bar, frantically knitting.

"At least they never run out of socks," I observed.

"Now, be nice," said T. "It's just a way to keep her hands busy."

"Better than smoking," I admitted.

"That's Bella," T. pointed to a rotund, balding gentleman with suspenders.

Bella the Drag Queen? Unrecognizable! Last time I'd seen her was back in October, at a Halloween Party, wearing an explosion of feathers and spangles. "That's not a costume," I'd commented to T. at the time. "That's a personality disorder."

"She looks like a farmer tonight," T. said.

"What kind of farm would that be?"

"An ostrich farm, probably."

"With a few peacocks."

We shared a table with a couple of strangers. The man was a used car salesman, and his date (not exactly a girlfriend, as it turned out) seemed younger and bored with her companion. She was definitely and defiantly BBW, wearing a flimsy print top cut down to there. She rested her mammoth knockers on the table top, squeezing them together periodically so we could all admire her cleavage.

"I used to have tits like that," I whispered to T. "But I didn't flaunt them."

"Now, be nice," T. repeated.

"Are you two married?" the salesman asked.

"Yes, but not to each other," I said, ignoring T.'s pained expression.

We drank rum and coke and flung ourselves around the floor. The singers recognized us from the Halloween Party. Then we recognized a couple from the same party. The husband had been Neptune and his wife Captain Jack Sparrow. She was a handsome, buxom brunette with masses of dark curly hair, solid hips and thighs, and a smile that never quit. They'd seemed quite taken with T. and me at the time, insisted on exchanging phone numbers; we'd talked about calling them to get together, but we never had. Perhaps because we suspected they might be swingers.

Still, I would like to get to know them better. They seem like a lot of fun, and it would be nice to make new friends as a couple with another couple that are lively, yet age appropriate.

The husband sat on the sidelines most of the evening, watching his wife dance with a series of pirates and rogues. Periodically she would rejoin him, and they seemed solid and affectionate. "He gets off seeing his wife desired by other men," I suggested. How far did that go?

At the end of the evening, we wandered over to the couple and shared some birthday cake. My blood sugar had plunged from the exercise and alcohol; I licked the frosting off the plate, which made the wife laugh.

It was after midnight, and time to go. One of the pirates sidled over to me, dismissing T. with a wave of his hand. "He can go," the pirate leered. "But why don't you stay?"

I was rather pleased at this, but T. was not.

"Don't you like to see your girlfriend desired by other men?" I teased her.

"I don't handle that sort of thing very well," T. admitted. But I suspect her irritation was not triggered by jealousy, but rather by being mistaken for a guy.