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Leo steers us toward one of those possibilities. Club music thumps out of a black door set into a building painted entirely black. I would have missed it if it weren’t for the bouncer standing in front of it checking IDs.
Thank God. If there’s someone checking IDs, that means the only people here will be at least twenty-one. Avery’s twenty. There’s no possible way they’ll be here tonight. Even if they were twenty-one, it would be somekind of statistical marvel for us both to end up at this club tonight.
I catch myself relaxing at that thought. Nothing weird will happen tonight. Heck, maybe I’ll even meet someone who isn’t my student. I’m not against it. It can’t be that different from my gay bar back home, can it?
Yes. Yes, it can.
The moment the bouncer waves Leo and I inside, I realize just how different this bar can be from what I’m familiar with.
The inside sports nearly as much black paint as the exterior. Multi-colored lights flash through a big main room that’s mostly dance floor. A bar sits to one side, but there’s also a hallway leading to, I assume, more rooms and more bars and more dancing.
And the people. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many people in one room all at the same time. The place is absolutely packed, bodies from wall to wall, all of them cloaked in concealing darkness until the lights flash over them to paint them in neon hues. They’re like something out of a cartoon or a dream, all these unfathomable people either pitched into darkness or flaring as bright as Christmas lights.
Leo is the straight guy here, yet I’m the one feeling out of place as we shoulder our way toward the bar. A lot of people are wearing leather or studded belts or harnesses over bare skin. The amount of dyed hair could keep everysalon in the state in business, and perhaps does. A lot of them have shaved off part of their hair, but only part.
“What do you want to drink?” Leo shouts when we reach the bar.
I shrug, too overwhelmed to think. Leo flags down the bartender and orders something, I have no idea what, and I go back to observing the place. It’s just so … so much. So much everything.
Leo nudges me and hands me a glass of what looks like whiskey. He clinks his glass against mine.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m only having one. We’ll dance it off before driving anywhere.”
I nod. I’m not worried about Leo’s sobriety tonight. What’s really here for him besides a drink and some dancing? I didn’t actually realize straight guys did this, but Leo seems completely at ease, even when some guy sidles up to the bar and offers to buy him another drink. He’s not freaked out or angry or offended or any of the things I’ve learned to expect from a straight guy. He simply declines and goes back to bopping to the music while we drink.
“Hey, let’s check out the other rooms,” he says.
Other rooms?
I nearly choke on my drink. Is this not enough? But before I know it, Leo is leading me down that hallway running beside the bar and we find, as promised, more rooms.
The first one is soaked in red light and playing deeper, slower music. The people here are getting so shamelessly handsy that I urge Leo to move on quickly.
Stairs lead us into a basement where three more rooms await. One has trippy, psychedelic lights whirling on the ceiling. One is far too well lit and bright. The last one has contraptions hanging from the ceiling and an awful lot of people in an awful lot of leather.
We opt for the psychedelic room, and head in with whatever remains of our drinks. Once we start moving around a bit, the lights washing over us, I have to admit that I catch myself getting into it. Something about the constantly shifting colors pairs well with the alcohol I’ve had tonight. I sink into the flow of the whole thing, dancing with Leo and the strangers filling the room.
“Hey, look at you,” Leo says. “I knew you remembered how to have fun, but I’ll confess you were scaring me for a minute.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to have fun,” I say. “It’s just…”
Leo cocks his head to the side. “Something wrong?”
“No. Not really. I just… I did go out one night. You remember that drag show I mentioned?”
Leo’s eyebrows creep up, but he just nods. This is not the right place to talk about this. I probably shouldn’t talk to anybody ever about this. But the whiskey and the lights and the dancing and the darkness have loosened me up,tricking me into lowering my defenses. A piece of me is desperate to expel this secret and let Leo judge me for it, see how appalled and disgusted he is when he knows what I’m really like.
“Okay, well, I went to the drag show,” I say. “And … my student was there.”
“Okay. Yeah. You said it was their idea.”
“It was. And it was great. The show, I mean. It was really fun. I do think it’s … valuable or whatever.”
If I was sober I might be able to soften the blow of what I’m about to admit, but I’m not and I can’t. It just comes out.
“We danced afterward,” I say. “They asked me to dance. And we … it might have gone a little past dancing.”
Leo’s eyes widen. I cringe, waiting for the hammer to fall.
