Even if I close my eyes I still see all the bright lights and flashing colors. My whole body is absorbed into the pulsing rhythm but for a few seconds I'm reliant on sensation.
Humans don't have the senses some animals do, cats for example, but I can feel the people around me. The sweat, body heat, and the movement of the air as people move closer, winding together and splitting apart. There's a girl with her back to me just a few inches away, her hair brushes me as she turns. Her gentle touch on my arm forces my eyes open and my head whips around.
Eye contact. It's rare. Generally I'm looking distractedly beyond my partner or at a body rather than a face. There's a need to follow physical cues that eyes just won't give. Sometimes, with a good partner who is clear, or who one knows well—one can stare up into their eyes and let things proceed as they will. Usually though, I have to make sure my shoes aren't getting stomped on.
But now, my eyes lock with this stranger and register the call for help. It's a subtle cue, for all it is obvious to me. Her eyes widen and her head jerks infinitesimally towards the man behind her. A sardonic smile flits briefly across my face as I notice the overeager aggression in his dancing.
There's no time for a verbal or physical cue to the other people near me--including the man I'm ostensibly dancing with—in times like this it's intervene first, answer questions later. He's got an arm around her waist and while she's following him, it won't take much to break his lead. Time for me to move in.
I grab her arm, pulling her forward and right up against me. She's eager to follow, even to a strange girl several inches shorter than she is and no definitive protection from the creep she's getting away from. We're both banking on the potential that guys like to watch women dance together but not indefinitely. Immediately we turn so our sides face her former dance partner—he's now faced with two shoulders that aren't attached to the same body. And those shoulders have arms and long, fast moving, well manicured nails. This is a little harder to grind to than a single front or back.
Still moving quickly to try and prevent any recurrence of the pairing, I throw my own head in his direction, allowing my hair to snap out. It's a cheap trick but people tend to stay out of the way of long ponytails flying and it gives me a second to find the shirt of my most recent partner. Ah, there—vision blurs up to make eye contact even as I'm already reaching for him.
It's the best that can be hoped for—he's not oblivious to what I've just done and why and realizes he was not the issue. Having comprehended all of that, it's not hard to insert him in between us, even as we continue a circular dance step.
Now my back is to the creep and I'm full flush against my former partner, looking over his shoulder to the other girl. She and I effectively sandwich my partner for a few seconds and then –then she's three feet away, headed for the bar and a drink.
My partner hasn't let go of me and I won't move away from him—which is good because the other guy is now in search of a new target. But I will close my eyes and listen to the music, now twenty-five seconds further into the song.
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